Kurdistan Democratic Party

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), known in Kurdish as "Partiya Demokrata Kurdistan" (PDK), is an Iraqi Kurdistan political party founded in 1946 by Mustafa Barzani. A centrist party, it believes in Kurdish nationalism and is more aggressive than the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

History
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) was founded on 16 August 1946 by Mustafa Barzani, a nationalist who swore to lead the Kurdish Revolution against Iraq. Headquartered in the Iraqi Kurdistan city of Erbil, the KDP has taken a centrist and Kurdish nationalist stance, somewhat supporting social equality but not leaning towards liberal democracy or conservative autocracy. The KDP, led by Barzani, fought Iraq in the First Iraq-Kurdish War (1961-1970) with aid from Iran and Israel, facing Iraq and Syria; in the Second Iraqi-Kurdish War (1974-1975), it was just the Kurds fighting Iraq. Barzani was forced to flee to Iran after defeat in the war, but into the late 1970s warfare continued, especially between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and their Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) rivals. In 1981, during the Iran-Iraq War, the KDP, Kurdish Socialist Party, and Iraqi Communist Party fought the PUK, and both sides accused each other of being in the pocket of Baghdad (Iraq) or even Ankara (Turkey).

In 1983, the KDP allied with Iran, letting the Iranians invade Iraq's border. Saddam Hussein got revenge against the backstabbers by killing 8,000 people of the Barzani clan as well as gassing innocent Kurds, and when the PUK made a ceasefire with Saddam to consolidate their territory, many PUK troops defected to the KDP. However, by May 1987 all of the Kurdish parties formed the Kurdistan Front and gained unity against Iraq, with aid from Iran.

In the aftermath of the Gulf War (1990-1991) between Iraq and a coalition of Arab and Western countries, the KDP launched a new rebellion against Iraq. Despite the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries setting up no-fly zones over some rebel-held territories, the rebellion was crushed, alongside a Shi'a rebellion in southern Iraq.

However, during the Iraq War Kurdistan's Peshmerga militia force captured Kirkuk and Diyala from Iraqi forces, with aid from the US, UK, and other coalition forces. In 2014, three years after the withdrawal of the coalition forces, the KDP resumed their offensive against the new democratic Iraqi goverment despite its primarily-Kurdish and Shi'a government. The KDP occupied several Iraqi cities in the north during the ISIS Offensive, dividing the country between KDP, PUK, Iraq, and The Islamic State.